The Gift of a Son
by Jake Crepeau
Summary: Somewhere in the midst of several assignments between the Battle of Hastings and the slave revolt at Capua, Bogg realizes that Jeffrey is much more than a walking Guidebook.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **_Voyagers!_ and its associated characters are registered trademarks of Scholastic Productions, James D. Parriott Productions, and Universal-MCA Entertainment. This story is based on characters and situations created by James D. Parriott and is provided for entertainment purposes only; no copyright infringement is intended by the author.

**Acknowledgments**

Jordre has two areas of historical specialization: WWII Germany, and the Middle Ages; due to the latter, she had a particular gripe about not getting to see what happened at Hastings, and so "Omni 101" is for her. Also, thanks to Peeper Stockwell for challenging me to write a scene where Bogg teaches Jeff to use the Omni. Additional thanks are due the _Voyagers!_ team at for making the Guidebook available; without it, that scene could not have been written.

Mrs. Phineas Bogg graciously provided me with some excellent research links for the segment on Casey Jones, and one of them led me to the Casey Jones Village and Railroad Museum, whose historian Norma Taylor was kind enough to provide me with some information I could not find elsewhere.

And, as always, special thanks to Jordre—my own personal "history book in pants"—for the beta.

_**Voyagers!**_

**The Gift of a Son**

**by**

**Jake Crepeau**

**Chapter 1**

"**Omni 101"**

_**Hastings, England; October 14, 1066**_

Jeffrey pulled the goggles from his grimy face as he sat up. They had landed in a gully similar to the one where they had nearly been run over after leaving Egypt two days ago, but this one was grass-covered and quiet. He found the model airplane he had rescued from the Wright's argument; it was resting atop a cluster of wildflowers where it had fallen out of his pocket during the landing. Picking it up, he grinned. Apparently the Omni didn't care _who_ shot down the Red Baron—if one could talk about an inanimate object as "caring" about anything—as long as _someone_ did.

Behind him, Bogg grunted as he sat up, and Jeffrey turned, holding the little plane aloft. "We're alive!" he announced happily.

"Yeah; we made it," Bogg breathed in relief.

"And Eddie and Mary?"

"Green light, kid, all the way." He rested his elbows on his knees and gazed at the ground.

He actually seemed a little dejected, and Jeffrey thought he knew why. "You liked her, didn't you?"

Bogg sat up and looked at him. "Me? Nahhh. What makes you think that?"

"I don't know," the boy shrugged, getting to his feet. "It's just the way you looked at her. Kinda mushy; not like Agnes."

_Bat's breath! Since when do kids his age notice things like that?_ Bogg thought as he picked himself up. "Forget about the way I looked at her," he said, starting to walk, the boy trotting along after him. "We're Voyagers, kid. There's no time for romance."

Mentally, Jeffrey pounced on the word "we." "Right. Voyagers. No romance," he repeated.

"Time is our oyster," Bogg proclaimed next.

"Oyster. Right."

"Quarter to no man," he went on, getting caught up in the game, swinging one arm to the side in a sweeping motion.

"No man," Jeffrey repeated, mimicking his gesture.

"We can do anything, change anything, _be_ anything!" he was grinning now himself.

"Voyagers!" the boy concluded happily, and his heart was soaring. Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Tom could go hang for all he cared; he never had to see them again. He was a _Voyager!_

"Voyagers," Bogg confirmed, then grabbed Jeffrey's arm to stop him. "You hear that?" he asked, listening intently. "It sounded like a cannon."

"Where are we?"

He reached under his leather jacket and withdrew the Omni. "England, 1066," he replied.

The high-pitched pinging told Jeffrey the rest, without the sight of the flashing red light. After a moment's thought, he blurted, "That's it!" hard on the heels of Bogg's misidentification of the event as Pearl Harbor.

This drew a puzzled "Huh?" from the Voyager, who was pretty sure he'd gotten it wrong…_again._

"That's what's wrong; they didn't have cannons in 1066," Jeffrey clarified.

Another burst of fire, and a shell exploded about twenty feet behind them, drawing their gazes to the top of the rise, where the Normans were just coming into view, their longbows nocked and ready. _"Bat's breath!"_ Bogg spat, grabbing for Jeffrey.

"Not again!" the boy protested as his companion snatched him up and started to run.(1)

Safely out of the way, Bogg and Jeffrey watched as the Norman forces were mercilessly mowed down; the survivors, terrified by this strange new weapon, fled in disarray. The Saxons broke ranks and pursued them; by midday, it was over.

"I take it that wasn't supposed to happen," Bogg remarked.

Jeffrey shook his head. "The Normans killed King Harold and won the battle." He turned puzzled eyes to his new friend. "What do you do when something happens too soon? The cannon isn't even supposed to be invented for another hundred years."

Bogg sighed unhappily. "There's only one answer to that question, kid."

Jeffrey made a face as he guessed the answer. "Another Voyager, and whoever it is made one _huge_ mistake."

"That's one way of putting it," Bogg snorted.

~oOo~

It didn't take much to insinuate themselves into the general goings-on. The Saxons assumed they were someone's servants and put them immediately to work; Bogg was set to helping gather the wounded and bury the dead, and Jeffrey was drafted as a water boy.

The boy was nervous at first. Up until now, all their stops had involved Americans, people who spoke his language and whose customs were familiar, even if only from books and movies set in those times. They might be in England now, but whatever language these people were speaking, it sure didn't sound like English.

Then, suddenly, it did; the strange words seemed to twist and warp themselves in his ear until he was hearing his own everyday speech. Even more incredibly, when he finally dared to try talking himself, the other person seemed to understand him perfectly well. It must have something to do with the Omni, he decided; he'd have to ask Bogg about it later.

The whole scene could only be described as gruesome. While Jeffrey was only carrying water, he still had to walk among the fallen troops to get to the men—and women, he noted in some surprise, seeing the camp followers out there seeing to the wounded alongside the men. His history classes in school had had him believing that women in this era were kept strictly at home, but these were clearly the wives and families of the soldiers.

But that wasn't the only thing books and movies had gotten wrong; they hadn't even come close to showing what the carnage was really like. And the _smell!_ He'd once read that, at the moment of death, the body expelled its wastes; now, his nose was telling him it was true. Combined with the metallic odor of blood, it was enough to turn his stomach. He tried not to look down, not to see the awful wounds, but it was impossible, and within the first hour he had thoroughly emptied his stomach three or four times. At first he was acutely embarrassed by what he thought was weakness, but then he saw some of the men being sick—even Bogg woofed his cookies a few times—and Jeffrey felt a little better.

He quickly learned that, unless someone wanted water, he was beneath everyone's notice, so he had no chance to ask questions, though he did manage to garner a few snippets of information simply by listening. It was amazing how careless of their tongues people were in front of "mere" servants; no wonder there were so many jokes about servants' gossip.

_You've seen worse,_ Bogg firmly told himself with each hideously mangled body. Cannon balls did enough damage all by themselves, but when you threw in explosive shot, things got truly horrific. _You've seen worse,_ he told himself again, but it didn't help. He turned quickly to one side and heaved onto the ground, then kicked dirt over the results as he called for water.

It wasn't until after he'd rinsed his mouth that he saw who the water boy was. The kid looked more than a little green around the gills himself, and Bogg managed a weak smile of encouragement. "You're doing fine, kid," he said softly.

"I don't _feel_ fine," Jeffrey replied in a voice that shook just a little.

Bogg shook his head. "No, and neither does anybody else. You could see stuff like this every day of your life, but you never get used to it." He gave the boy's shoulder a squeeze. "Better get going before somebody decides to beat you; that guy over there doesn't look too happy with you right now."

Was that a wicked grin on the kid's face? "You watch _yourself_; they think you're a servant too, remember?" came the rejoinder as he moved off with his burden.

Bogg smiled and shook his head. The kid had been chiseling away at his heart almost since the moment they'd met, it seemed, and he had to admit that it was starting to work.

Those oak buckets were no featherweights even when they were empty, he thought as he watched him shift the yoke on shoulders that were probably already painfully bruised; filled with water, they must weigh nearly as much as Jeff did.

He winced in sympathy when the irate man dealt the boy a slap that had to have set his ears ringing; Jeffrey staggered when the force of it upset his balance, and he fell to his knees. The Voyager clenched his fists as the man raised his hand to strike again when the kid was too slow getting up—who did he think he was, smacking around a kid that wasn't even his?—but Jeffrey ducked the second blow easily, making it look as if he had just bent to remove the weight from his shoulders so he could rise. The man took his drink and said something Bogg couldn't hear, then left; Jeffrey glared after him, trembling visibly with the effort of choking back a retort as he flipped a bird at him when he was sure he wasn't looking. Bogg chuckled softly at the sight. It wasn't a habit he wanted to encourage in the kid—not after what he'd gone through trying to shed his own formerly salty language—but he figured that, just this once, he'd let him get away with it.

With a mental shake, he turned back to his own work, his impression of the kid now increased by more than just a notch or two. Historically, life was rough on kids, especially in the lower classes, and sometimes it seemed the earlier in time you went, the worse it got. Nobody knew that better than Voyagers did, but somehow, it had just become a lot more personal.

By the time nightfall put a stop to the cleanup, Jeffrey was ready to fall over from sheer exhaustion. Hiking and Little League baseball had done little to prepare him for this kind of work, and he was sure he'd walked many more miles than the longest hike he'd ever been on. The high-topped shoes he'd been wearing since Dayton didn't do much to cushion his steps; he _really_ missed his Nikes. His face felt stiff where the man had hit him, and every muscle in his body was screaming when he settled onto the ground near a fire to wait for Bogg. The chill in the air wasn't helping. _They itch, they're hot, and they make me feel stupid,_ he had complained about the coarse woolen knickerbockers, but he was glad of them now.

When Bogg found him, he was sound asleep, curled into a tight, shivering ball too close to the fire. He wasn't really surprised; except for a short nap before carting the glider to Big Rock Creek, they'd been going nonstop for over twenty-four hours. Not bad for a kid who, until three days ago, had probably been spending the better part of his days sitting in a classroom. People in the twentieth century had no idea how easy their lives were, the Voyager thought as he carefully lifted the sleeping boy into his arms, but this one was starting to learn.

_**London, England; June, 1066**_

_Not that dream again,_ Jeffrey groaned mentally as a falling sensation brought him awake; then he landed and heard a grunt under him. Realizing what must have happened, he quickly rolled off Bogg. "You okay?" he asked.

Bogg sat up, gingerly holding his abused midsection. "Good thing my stomach was empty," he said dryly. _Next time, wake the kid up first... _He opened the Omni. "London, June 1066; red light," he informed the boy, then grinned. "I managed to find out what we needed to know while _you_ were busy getting your ears boxed," he teased.

"Oh, yeah? And I suppose _you_ have no idea what it feels like, huh?" Jeffrey shot back.

Bogg let it pass; the kid had earned the right. "I'm for food and a nice, soft bed," he said, nodding toward an inn just down the street, a picture-sign above its door identifying it as the Cock and Bull. "You in?"

"You bet! But how're we going to pay for it? You told me Voyagers don't carry money."

"Spoils of war, kid," Bogg replied, pulling a jingling pouch out of a pocket.

~oOo~

"You call this a nice, soft bed?" Jeffrey groused as he watched Bogg unroll the blankets he'd taken from the battlefield and lay them over a wide straw-stuffed ticking on the floor of an otherwise bare room.

"Best I could do in this time zone, kid, and lucky to get this much. We _could've_ ended up sleeping on the floor."

The thought of resting his aching body on such a hard surface was enough to make the boy leave off his complaining, but he needn't have worried. Divested of shoes and jacket, he was asleep before Bogg finished shedding his own footwear.

~oOo~

"C'mon, kid; show a leg,"(2) Bogg called, nudging the blanket-wrapped cocoon.

The dark curls showing at one end shifted, and a muffled groan issued forth, sounding vaguely like, "Leave me alone."

"Not a chance; now up and at 'em, before I dump you on the floor." He grabbed the edge of the pallet and began to tug on it.

Jeffrey sat bolt upright at once. "I'm up, I'm up!" he said hastily, then noticed that Bogg was no longer wearing that striped suit he'd picked up in Dayton, but was instead dressed like a Saxon.

Chuckling a little, Bogg told him, "I got us some clothes," and set a bundle next to him, then went over to the fireplace and squatted down in front of it, stirring the embers to life and putting his discarded suit into the fire; he kept his back to Jeffrey to give him some semblance of privacy.

"So what did you find out?" the boy asked.

"The inventor was somebody named Ælfred; he started work in the spring. About a week ago now, they started hearing 'thunder' in the vicinity of his cabin, and King Harold sent some troops to investigate. He liked what they reported, so now Ælfred's got royal backing."

"You know where he is?" Jeffrey asked, his voice muffled by the tunic he was pulling over his head.

The sound of a distant explosion reached them just then, and Bogg said, "Does that answer your question? Now it's your turn: Tell me about the cannon."

"It was invented in China in the twelfth century and showed up in Egypt about a hundred years later. It didn't make it to Europe until the Hundred Years' War in the fourteenth century."

Bogg let out a short whistle. "Talk about jumping the gun," he grinned, and was rewarded by Jeffrey's groan. "You done yet?" he asked the boy.

"Yeah; what do you want to do with these?" He approached with what he was thinking of as the "Dayton clothes," and Bogg put them into the now-roaring fire. Jeffrey squatted next to him. "How come we can talk to the Saxons? I know _I_ sure don't speak the language."

"Neither do I," Bogg told him. "It's the Omni."

"But you're the one carrying it."

"You don't have to be carrying it. You've traveled in its chronofield, so now you're included in its effect."

"What else can it do?" Jeffrey asked curiously.

Bogg shrugged. "Beyond that, you've got me. I'm _told_ it has a whole bag of tricks that field Voyagers don't need to know about." He saw the boy's eyes straying to the device he'd left on the table and added warningly, "And you just remember what I said."

"Yeah, I know; don't touch it," Jeffrey sighed.

Bogg knew Jeffrey was hurt by the continued prohibition after the pep talk he'd given the kid—and, incidentally, himself—after first arriving here, just before all hell had broken loose; but the last thing he needed...

The thought was interrupted by the realization that it suddenly bothered him to lay down the law and just leave it at that. It was almost as if that little exchange had been some sort of…_rite of passage_ was the only way to describe it. Jeffrey might be only eleven, but he was, for all practical purposes, his partner now, and you didn't treat a partner that way. The Code was clear about giving an Omni to someone who was not a Voyager, but he wasn't sure that applied to Jeffrey anymore. _In for a penny, in for a pound…_"I just don't want you to get lost in time, with me unable to go after you," he told the boy. "One day real soon, I'll teach you how to use it, and then things'll be different, but for now, for _both_ our safety, just leave it alone, okay?"

His face lighting up, Jeffrey said, "You really mean it? You'll teach me?"

Chisel, nothing; somewhere in the last twenty-four hours, the kid had resorted to metaphorical dynamite, Bogg realized as his own heart lifted to see the joy on his face, and he grinned. "Hey, we're Voyagers, remember? What's a Voyager without his Omni?"

He'd meant it as a rhetorical question, but Jeffrey suddenly sobered and answered it with a single word. "Stranded," he said quietly; then, after a long silent moment during which he blanched a little as he presumably digested the ramifications of that, he said, "Okay, Bogg. I won't touch it until you tell me I can."

Smiling in approval, he ruffled Jeffrey's hair, then turned his attention back to the fire. Seeing that the anachronistic garb had been mostly reduced to ash, he banked the fire and got to his feet. "Let's go downstairs and get some breakfast, and then we'll go pay Ælfred a visit."

~oOo~

When they eventually located their quarry, he was alone in a field with a simple long iron tube mounted on a tripod, its back end resting on the ground. Next to it, cannon balls were stacked in the familiar pyramid display, a lit torch stuck in the ground nearby; on the other side was a small sack of black powder. At the moment, the man was doing nothing, pacing back and forth, now pausing to look over a sheet of parchment on a crude makeshift table, the sheet held in place by a large rock, then stopping to hold a hand over the barrel, and Bogg grinned tightly, his own experience with the cannons of the seventeenth century telling him exactly what the problem was. Now if he could just keep Ælfred from figuring out the solution...

"I'm going to have a look around," Bogg murmured in Jeffrey's ear. "Stay here; I'll be right back." With that, he moved off silently through the brush, and for a moment Jeffrey was painfully reminded of a game his father had played with him on camping trips, seeing if they could move as quietly as Indians, trying to sneak up on each other. It had only been a game then, and one that he had been starting to get pretty good at; now he could see that it would be a useful skill for a Voyager to have. For a moment, he was tempted to try to follow; just as he started to get to his feet, carefully making no sound, Bogg turned as if reading his mind and jabbed a finger in his direction, the look on his face a silent command, and Jeffrey made a face, but settled back down to wait.

Bogg was indeed back a moment later, rapidly murmuring instructions now. "His house is about fifty yards that way, just inside the trees; I don't think he can see it from where he is. I'll keep him busy; you go inside and have a look around."

"What am I looking for?"

Bogg shrugged. "Anything that looks like it doesn't belong."

Jeffrey watched a moment as Ælfred poured a little gunpowder. Probably an alchemist, he thought, and likely had notes lying around in the house. A sudden thought made him grab the Voyager's arm just as he started to move away. "Will I be able to _read_ the language?" he hissed.

Bogg nodded, then turned and moved toward the edge of the forest, this time making no effort to be quiet. "Good morning," he called as he left the last trees behind, just as Ælfred was loading the next shot.

"Good morning," the would-be inventor replied. "What brings you out here? Did the king send you?"

"Uh, no," Bogg answered, then decided on a version of the truth. "I heard cannon fire..."

"'Cannon?'" Ælfred rolled the strange word around in his mouth, looking a little anxious. "You have seen such before?"

"A few years ago—in Egypt," he added, remembering what Jeffrey had told him.

"Egypt." Ælfred made no attempt to hide his relief. "Perhaps you can help me, then."

"Well, I can try. What's the problem?"

"I need a way to dissipate the heat. This will never be a practical weapon if one must wait so long between shots for the metal to cool. How did the Egyptians solve that problem?"

"Well, I don't really know. They were pretty secretive about it…"

~oOo~

It was a small cabin, built of rough-hewn boards, with a thatched roof. The stone fireplace at one end was leaking smoke through chinks in the mortar; an awful lot of it was drifting up from the chimney for this hour on a summer day. And the shutters on the single unglazed window were tightly closed.

Cautiously, Jeffrey opened the door and slipped inside. The only light came from the fireplace; the smoke stung his eyes, making it that much harder to peer through the gloom. Stifling a cough, he opened the shutters to let in some air, then froze at the sound of a weak groan, which drifted into disjointed muttering, first something about "swabbing the bore," then going on to Saracens. The first Crusade was due in about thirty years; maybe this guy—for it was indeed a man's voice—had attempted a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and run afoul of the marauders whose harassment of Christian pilgrims had been the main cause of the first of those wars.

He could make out the silhouette of an occupied pallet near the fireplace and hesitated. Should he get closer? What if the man had something contagious? The thought of catching so much as a case of the sniffles in an age without medicines was enough to make him shudder.

The man's mutterings faded into near-inaudibility, then rose in volume long enough for the words "Atlanta" and "General Sherman" to reach his ears, and Jeffrey caught his breath as he realized he was listening to the ravings of a Voyager.

He fell silent once more as the boy decided to risk moving closer. The only sound in the room now was the crackling of the fire...and a soft clicking that sounded suspiciously like an Omni's "get-out-of-Dodge" button. Sure enough, clutched in a white-knuckled grip in the man's right hand was a device identical to the one Bogg carried; his thumb was repeatedly pressing the top button, just to the right of the hinge. On the floor alongside the pallet, the unconscious Voyager's hand resting possessively on it, was what had to be his guidebook, the gold V on the cover partially covered by the hand. In the lower right-hand corner—the part of Bogg's book that had been obscured by Ralph's jaws—was the name Mordecai Bloom.

~oOo~

Ælfred was poring over his notes yet again, with Bogg looking over his shoulder, trying to read the Latin and only understanding one word in a dozen. He vaguely remembered studying Latin in his childhood, before he'd been pressed into the English navy, where he'd spent five miserable years until, unable to take any more, he'd jumped ship at Port Royal...he shook the memory away and forced his mind back onto the task at hand, just as the translator function readjusted itself to the secondary language(3) and he found himself looking at instructions for making gunpowder.

Both men looked up sharply at the sound of Jeffrey's voice calling Bogg's name; the kid was pelting at top speed across the field, though at least he was staying out of any potential line of fire. Bogg took advantage of the Saxon's distraction to grab the torch and throw it into the sack of powder; as Ælfred scrabbled to get away, Bogg snatched the parchment, rolled it up, and stuffed it into his tunic before jogging toward Jeffrey.

They were far enough away when it blew not to be injured by the blast. "Whatcha got?" Bogg demanded.

"There's a Voyager in there!" Jeffrey panted. "I think he hit his head; it's all bandaged up. He's delirious, but he keeps trying to bug out. I think his Omni's busted, though. The name on his guidebook is Mordecai Bloom."

Tossing a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure Ælfred was still occupied putting out the fire, he followed Jeffrey inside, where he found everything as the boy had said. Bloom was muttering again, going on about something called a "zoot suit."

"Keep an eye out and let me know if our friend out there starts coming this way," Bogg told Jeffrey as he attempted to pry the Omni out of Mordecai's hand.

His raving immediately stopped. "No!" he protested weakly, beginning to struggle.

"Take it easy. I'm a Voyager, and I'm trying to help you."

His words clearly were not penetrating the man's delirium; his struggles grew more violent, despite his enfeebled state.

_"Voyager Bloom!"_ Bogg snapped, putting all the authority he possessed into his voice.

At the window, Jeffrey cringed reflexively. He'd never heard that tone in Bogg's voice before and decided right then and there he was going to make darned sure it was never directed at him.

The effect on Bloom was immediate; the man ceased his struggles and opened his eyes, gazing at Bogg as cognition returned. "Voyager...?"

"Bogg. Phineas Bogg."

"Please...VHQ..."

"I will, if you let me have your Omni for a minute."

The tight grip loosened, and Bogg took the device. Another explosion rent the air—presumably whatever remaining powder hadn't gone up in the first blast, Bogg surmised.

Mordecai struggled to sit up. _"No!"_ he blurted.

"Don't worry; I've got it," Bogg tried to reassure him as he finished setting the Omni.

"You...don't understand," Bloom insisted, falling back against the bedding. "Out of it...not sure what...I might've said."

Bogg picked up the guidebook and placed it on Bloom's chest, folding the injured man's left arm over it. "I know; he's trying to invent the cannon out there."

"Too soon!"

"Yeah, but he doesn't know he has to swab the bore—and I'm not gonna tell 'im," he added in a conspiratorial tone, placing the Omni back into the other Voyager's hand. "Now you just Omni yourself out of here and let us take care of it."

That made Jeffrey smile. _Us,_ he'd said. Just three days ago, Bogg had been trying to abandon him; now he was saying _us._

With a soft _whoosh! _Mordecai Bloom vanished.

"He doesn't know he has to swab the bore," Jeffrey softly repeated Bogg's earlier remark. He had no idea what it meant, but it was obviously something critical; Bloom had been...His head snapped up. "Bogg! When I first came in here, he was mumbling something about swabbing the bore—What does that mean? It's important, isn't it?"

"You could say that. You know what a ramrod is, right?" At the boy's nod, he went on, "The one for a cannon is double ended; one end has a wet sponge on it. You run that through the barrel to cool the metal and put out any smoldering powder left from the last shot so it doesn't make the fresh powder go off when you're trying to reload." The single chime of a green light sounded as he opened his Omni. "Looks like we got here just in time...and I think we'd better get _out_ of here before Ælfred comes in to ask Mordecai what he's been doing wrong."

_**Indiana; May 3, 1962**_

Bloom's plight left Bogg badly shaken; it was every Voyager's worst nightmare come true. Critically injured and helpless in a primitive time zone, Mordecai's reaction had been the one drummed into every student Voyager until it became true reflex: Get back to Headquarters if you can. In the unlikely event of damage to the Omni itself, recall was automatic, but that didn't cover other scenarios. Because of this, it was part of Mission Control's job to monitor the condition of every Voyager in the field; theoretically, they could have yanked Bloom out of there, but intertemporal telemetry was unreliable at best, and medical problems often went unidentified until it was too late. Bloom had tried, but the head injury had apparently befuddled his thinking enough that he'd forgotten to reset his Omni.

It had driven home to Bogg the single greatest advantage of having a partner: someone to Omni them out if he was unable to do it himself. _One day real soon,_ he'd promised Jeffrey; well, that day was right now.

It was an almost universal belief that a Higher Power controlled where one ended up when the Omni was in automatic mode, and, at the moment, Bogg was inclined to believe it. Just when they needed it, they'd landed in the middle of nowhere, a huge open field, pancake-flat, with not a sign of human habitation for miles in any direction—unless one counted the soybeans growing in neat rows. And in a green zone, no less, he grinned as he checked the Omni; then he held it down to the kid's eye level. "Okay, kid; where are we?" he asked.

Jeffrey studied the device, noting again the four rings, the small indicator window, the crosshairs over the globe. The readout was blurred; taking hold of Bogg's hand, carefully not touching the Omni itself, he tilted it until he could see it clearly. After reading off the date and location, he looked up at Bogg and asked, "How come it didn't work when Bloom was pushing the button?"

"He didn't reset it."

"You turn those dials," Jeffrey nodded; he'd seen that done a few times already.

"That's one way," Bogg confirmed. Squatting down to make it easier for Jeffrey to see what he was doing, hemoved a small switch on the side of the Omni's case. "That sets it to automatic mode. Then, when you Omni out—you've already found out how to do that—it selects a destination at random." He couldn't resist the little bit of gentle teasing; the boy at his side reddened a little and let out an embarrassed laugh. "When we land and I check it, that's when I reset it. It's always the first thing you do after you land, in case you need to leave in a hurry.

"But _this_ is the most important setting for you to know." He spun the dials until the four red marks were lined up under the window, forming the same stylized "V" that adorned the lid. "That'll take us to Voyager headquarters." Meeting the boy's eyes gravely, he said, "You saw what I did for Bloom; if I ever get hurt that badly, it'll be your job to do it for me. In fact, from now on, if I can't Omni us out for whatever reason, you'll do it. Got it?"

Jeffrey nodded very soberly. If only he'd had an Omni that awful day... Tears rose in his eyes at the thought.

"I know," Bogg said softly, knowing too well what thought must have just run through his head; gently, he gathered the boy into his arms. The biggest drawback to this job was letting people die who were supposed to die—or, worse, making _sure _they did—but that was a lesson for another day, hopefully a long way off.

"Sorry," Jeffrey mumbled, pulling away and wiping viciously at his eyes.

"For what?" Bogg asked.

"Being such a cry-baby."

"You're not a cry-baby. You've got a lot of hurt bottled up in there; it's gotta come out somehow. I can think of worse ways to blow off steam." He took the boy's hand and firmly placed the Omni in it. "Now let's see you put this thing in automatic mode and take us out of here."

The change in Jeff's demeanor was immediate and dramatic; from seeming to fold into himself in embarrassment, he went to a sort of nervous anticipation, his hands actually shaking just a little as he moved the selector switch. Bogg grinned as he watched, remembering his own first time—He'd actually dropped the thing, and one of his classmates had taken perverse pleasure in calling him "Voyager Fumblethumbs" for the rest of the day. Had it been anyone but his best friend, he might have taken offense. He chuckled softly to himself at the memory as he put a hand on Jeff's shoulder and nodded.

_**Cayce, Kentucky; 1879**_

They landed in the middle of a narrow dirt road at the edge of a field where several men were hard at work raking cut hay into windrows; Jeffrey read off the date and location before snapping the Omni shut on the red light and handing it back to Bogg - after making sure the selector switch was in the auto position..

"Any ideas yet?" Bogg asked him.

"The place sounds familiar," Jeffrey said thoughtfully, gazing across the hayfield just as the worker nearest them, a particularly tall, lanky individual, removed his hat and mopped his brow. "Bogg! That's Casey Jones!"

~ooooO~

(1) Adapted from the pilot episode.

(2) This is a nod to Bogg's seafaring past. According to the British Naval Museum, it was customary, when a naval vessel was in port, to allow women on board—ostensibly the sailors' "wives," but nobody ever tried to verify this. When it was time to wake the men, someone would call out, "Show a leg." If a feminine leg emerged from a bunk, the sailor with her was allowed an extra half-hour sack time.

(3) Nearly all written material at that point in time was in Latin, as opposed to the Old English which was the spoken language of the Saxons. Vernacular writing did not start to become widespread until the 17th century.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Workin' on the Railroad**

_**Cayce, Kentucky; 1879**_

"Bogg! That's Casey Jones!"

"Who's he?"

"Only the most famous railroad engineer in history. There was a picture of him in one of my books."

"Looks more like a farmer to me," Bogg remarked.

"That's what's wrong. He's supposed to be in the railroad telegraph office in Columbus right now."

"We've got a red light because some guy decided to work on a farm instead of the railroad?"

"Are you kidding? About twenty years from now, he saves a whole trainload of people. There's no telling who might die if he's not there."

They watched as the tall youth turned in their direction to gaze unseeing past them at the sound of a train whistle in the distance. A bitter grimace briefly twisted his features and was gone; then his gaze focused on the strangers. "If y'all are lookin' for work, the Deacon's just over there," he said in a voice which, while still youthful, was nearly as deep as Bogg's. He pointed to a man standing near a barrel, drinking from a dipper. "Deacon Walls, he's the fella that owns this place."

"You'd rather be at the railroad, wouldn't you?" Jeffrey asked in a shrewd tone, and young Luther Jones (1) reddened.

"Jeffrey!" Bogg reproached him.

"Aw, it ain't nothin', sir," the bashful teenager said dismissively. "He ain't so diff'rent from my brother Eugene—about the same age, too, give or take." He grinned a little sadly at Jeffrey. "Had to pass up a chance last year. My ma's plumb terrified of the railroad an' wouldn't hear o' me workin' there, not even after I told her about George Westinghouse's new air brakes." He gave a conspiratorial wink. "You know how it is, don'tcha?"

Jeffrey grinned back, pleased at being taken into confidence by a sixteen-year-old. "Yeah," he nodded.

Luther picked up his rake. "Well, y'all just go see the Deacon like I said," he addressed Bogg once more. "Though y'all might want t'change y'all's (2) clothes first," he added, a bemused look on his face now.

The two looked down at themselves. "We're not exactly dressed for a job interview, are we?" Bogg grinned.

"Not unless we were auditioning for _Robin Hood,"_ Jeffrey added.

"You could be Much, the miller's son," Bogg teased him.

"And you could be…the sheriff of Nottingham," the boy shot back with a wicked grin.

"Hey! You little toad!" But he was laughing, and they continued their banter as they headed down the road.(3)

~oOo~

"We're gonna have to swipe the clothes this time, aren't we?" Jeffrey asked matter-of-factly when they reached the bustling town of Cayce.

"Why should we, when we can buy them?"

"With what? That money's no good here."

"Not _as_ money, no. But what do you think a collector or a museum would pay for genuine eleventh-century English coins?"

"I don't know, Bogg," Jeffrey said doubtfully. "This is an awfully small town. I don't think it's even got a museum, and how're you gonna find a collector?"

"It may be small, but it looks busy enough; there ought to be at least a pawn shop somewhere."(4)

The process of finding that shop proved to be unpleasant, particularly for Jeffrey. The way the grownups stared and tried, with varying degrees of success, not to laugh was bad enough, but then there were the kids. More than once Bogg had to restrain his companion when the boy would have gone after their tormentors. "Get used to it, kid," he said sympathetically. "As a Voyager, you're going to get a lot of that."

"Every time we change time zones, huh?" Jeffrey sighed.

"'Fraid so."

"Any other bad news I need to know about?" he asked dryly.

"You've already run into most of it: missed meals, long hours, lousy sleeping arrangements—sometimes literally."

That brought him up short as he parsed all the meanings of "lousy" he could think of. "You mean, like, _lice?"_

"Yep. You learn to live with 'em until you can get rid of 'em."

"Ewww."

Chuckling, the Voyager ruffled Jeff's hair. "And there's what we're looking for," he commented, indicating a shop with the familiar three gold spheres over the door.(5)

A while later, after some spirited haggling over the coins and "authentic reproduction costumes," they emerged from the shop wearing typical workmen's clothes, belying the prodigious amount of cash Bogg now had in his pocket. After a quick glance around, he opened the Omni. "Okay, kid; where to?"

"Same place, a year earlier," Jeffrey said slowly, thinking furiously. "The same date should be okay."

_"Should_ be?"

"My book didn't give exact dates." (6)

With a sigh of resignation, Bogg finished setting the Omni. "Okay, hold on; here goes nothing."

_**Des Moines River, Iowa; July 16, 1881**_

It was pitch-dark and pouring rain when the Voyager and his young companion fell through the time portal. Jeffrey's cry of pain as he landed was echoed by Bogg, each barely audible to the other over the roaring wind and rushing water, the latter sound coming from far below.

"Feels like I landed on a bed of nails," Bogg groused as he tried to get up, only to let out a startled yelp when his foot met nothing but air. Only the fact that he had not yet put any weight on it saved him from a disastrous fall. "Don't move, kid!" he shouted over the cacophony, cautiously feeling around himself. "I think we're on a railroad trestle!"

"I noticed!" Jeffrey called back, carefully shifting his weight, trying to avoid the worst of the sharp protuberances. "That explains the nails."

"How do you figure that?"

"They used to put nails in the ties to try to keep people from walking across."

Bogg opened the Omni and peered at it, trying to read it by the flashing red light. He was aided by an opportune flash of lightning.

"I don't believe it! Two in a row!" Jeffrey blurted when he heard where they were.

"What do you mean?"

"Another railroad legend," the boy explained. "Tonight's the night Kate Shelley stops a passenger train from trying to cross a bridge that collapsed."

"Not this bridge?" Bogg asked in sudden trepidation.

"Unh-uh," Jeffrey's reassurance came without hesitation. "She has to cross this one to get to the station, to tell them the other one is out."

"In _this?!"_

"Look! I bet that's her!" Jeff pointed down the track; not too far away, a dim glimmer of light was slowly moving toward them. It vanished in a sudden gust of wind; moments later, a prolonged lightning flash revealed the shape of a girl carrying a now-extinguished lantern, making her slow, painstaking way from one tie to the next, clutching the rail as she crawled. She looked up and froze with a shriek as the lightning also illuminated a huge tree that had been torn up by its roots, now being swept down the river towards them.

"Bat's breath! If that hits the bridge—"

"It won't," Jeffrey said firmly. "It passes between the pilings."

"So she makes it across?"

"She's supposed to; if something's gonna go wrong, it's gonna happen now."

"You wrap both arms around that rail and hang on with all you've got!"

"I'm 'way ahead of you, Bogg," Jeffrey replied, his teeth starting to chatter as the chill from the rain seeped into his very bones, the situation not aided by the ice-cold steel of the rail.

Bogg carefully got up, bracing himself on the slippery wood of the ties, now blessing those nails as much as he'd cursed them earlier, for they gave his feet purchase, even as they threatened to puncture the soles of his boots. Kate continued to crawl, and as she drew closer, lightning showed her sodden clothes clinging to her, the long skirts hampering her movements; there were numerous tears in her clothes from being dragged across the nail-studded ties, and Bogg suspected her skin was just as torn. She looked up once again to check the tree's progress, and Bogg could see the grim determination on her face as she, too, wrapped both arms around the rail and halted her own forward motion as the tree passed beneath.

A powerful spray of water washed over the bridge, threatening to sweep away anything on it; only his years of shipboard experience allowed Bogg to hold his position under its onslaught. He was horrified when he heard _two_ screams, and more lightning showed that both Kate and Jeff had fallen between the ties, both still holding onto the rails and struggling to pull themselves up. For a split instant he stood in frozen indecision.

"I'm okay; get _her!"_ Jeffrey insisted, even as he struggled against the sweeping branches that tried to yank him loose.

His voice broke the spell, and Bogg reached down to grip Kate's arms, pulling her to safety. She didn't even seem to be aware of his presence, however, continuing on her dogged way as if she'd never been interrupted, her utter exhaustion already apparent.

He'd seen such things before and wagered she probably wouldn't even remember most of this ordeal when it was over. "Jeff! You still with me?" he called, his heart in his mouth.

"Yeah," came the breathless reply.

Bogg made his way over. "I gotcha," he grunted as he pulled the boy up.

"Was that it?" Jeffrey asked, now shivering violently, as much from sheer terror as from cold.

"Must have been; light's green." Snapping the Omni shut, he looked over his shoulder to where Kate was still crawling. "She doesn't remember any of this, does she?"

"No," Jeffrey confirmed. "She remembered that she did it, and she remembered the tree and her lantern getting blown out, but that's about it."

"She's not much older than you, is she?"

"At least three years. She's fifteen; (7) I'm only going to be twelve in a couple of weeks." He followed the Voyager's gaze to the slowly receding form. "You know, I think I'd feel better if we stayed with her, at least until she gets to the end of this bridge."

Bogg shook his head reluctantly. "Much as I'd like to, it's not a good idea. If we hang around too long, she might notice us and remember; we can't take that chance. Hold on."

_**Camp Hill, Pennsylvania; July 17, 1856**_

They landed beside a small, placid creek at the bottom of a high, steep bank. The sun was shining brightly, and the air was hot and muggy, but at the moment that was a blessing to the thoroughly chilled pair. They both remained lying where they had landed for a few moments, enjoying the warmth and watching the water vapor rise in steamy wisps from their sodden clothes.

Then Bogg sat up and sniffed the air. "You smell something?" he asked.

"Smoke," Jeffrey confirmed, also sitting up. "Where are we?"

"Pennsylvania, July 17, 1856. Red light."

The boy let himself fall back with a sound that was half-laughter and half-groan.

"Don't tell me this makes three," Bogg said.

"It's the Camp Hill train wreck; that's probably why we smell smoke."

His heart sinking, the Voyager said, "I take it that means we're not supposed to go back and try to prevent it?"

Jeffrey shook his head unhappily. "Boy, don't I wish." He pointed toward the top of the twenty-five-foot-high bank. "If this is Sandy Run Creek, the track is right up there."

Bogg levered himself to his feet and held out a hand to Jeff, who used it to pull himself up, and they made their way up the steep slope.

When they reached the top, they could see that the worst was long over. What must have been a tremendous fire was out, though the firemen were still hosing down the smoldering wreckage from horse-drawn fire engines equipped with steam-powered pumps of the type Jeffrey had previously seen only in books and in the Firemen's Museum in his native New York. It had been a head-on collision; there was little left of either train. Both boilers had exploded, and the metal of the two locomotives was so twisted and entagled that it was difficult to tell where one engine ended and the other began, and there wasn't much left of the four wooden cars of the southbound train. The northbound appeared to have had ten to twelve cars. Of the first three, only the steel chassis remained; the next several cars had derailed and now lay on their sides. All of them were blackened and charred; men swarmed over them, extricating the passengers through the windows. Only the last car remained upright and largely intact. Not far from it was a cluster of about thirty or forty children and a handful of women, badly shaken, but apparently uninjured.

A small army of doctors and nurses, along with what had to be a whole convent of nuns, tended the wounded. Off to one side stood several wagons loaded with barrels of water; a steady stream of people armed with buckets of wood, metal, or leather moved to and from those barrels. Presiding over the barely organized chaos was a tiny elderly (8) woman, no taller than Jeffrey and a good ten pounds lighter.

"That's Mary Ambler," the boy pointed her out to Bogg. "She worked for almost twenty-four hours straight, and then took a lot of the injured to her house and cared for them herself. The town of Wissahickon changed its name to Ambler in her honor in…1868, I think it was."

But Bogg's horrified attention was riveted by the bodies in long rows, mercifully covered with sheets and blankets, the vast majority of which were too small to be adults. "They're just kids," he breathed.

"It was a church picnic. No; really," he added when Bogg looked oddly at him. "That train was chartered by a church in Philadelphia for a picnic in a park near Wissahickon."

Bogg looked from the distressingly small bodies to the boy at his side and found himself resisting a sudden urge to pull him close; less than an hour ago, the kid had come entirely too close to death himself.

The reaction surprised him. The Voyagers' Code made him responsible for Jeffrey's safety until he could be returned, but this went beyond Code-engendered concern. Just that very morning, he'd noticed a growing fondness for the kid; when had it escalated to what he was feeling now? Technically, since he couldn't return to 1982, he _should_ take the kid to Voyager Headquarters and have them send him back; in fact, he should have done it after they'd wrapped things up in 1066. Instead, he'd taught him how to use the Omni, and then taken him on another assignment. He had made all sorts of excuses to himself at the time, but now he had to admit that it had been that very fondness that had stopped him.

Drawing a deep breath to force his attention back to the situation at hand, he said, "Wait here while I see what I can do to help these guys."

"But I can help, too," Jeffrey protested.

Bogg shook his head, reluctant to put him through a close-up of casualties again so soon. "Stay put," he said and was gone.

Jeffrey rolled his eyes and settled to the ground. When was that guy going to get it through his head that, just because he was only eleven, he wasn't useless? Hadn't he proven himself _yet?_ What would it take? It wasn't as if he was any stranger to death—he shoved the thought away, but it was inevitable that the scene should evoke unwelcome memories of the accident that had killed his parents. Disgusted with himself, he got to his feet. He needed to find some way to help, something to keep himself busy before he dissolved into tears again.

"Is thee all right?" a woman's voice asked, and Jeffrey turned toward the speaker.

It was Mary Ambler herself, looking exactly as she had in the picture that had graced the pages of the book he'd recently read, the same book of railroad legends in which he'd seen the photo of Casey Jones. "I'm okay," he replied, remembering just in time not to call her "ma'am;" Quakers did not approve of honorifics of any kind.

"Thee looks like thee needs to be doing something."

He nodded vigorously. "Yes, please," he said, even willing to accept carrying water buckets again.

"Then come with me; I'll find thee something to do."

He glanced toward where Bogg was working; not immediately finding him, he decided not to wait, but followed the self-appointed "director of operations" as she made her rounds, now pausing to assist in caring for the injured, now pausing to comfort the dying, often sending Jeffrey for supplies or going for them herself.

At first he found it even worse than having time to think and remember. Nearly all the injured were burn victims, and he imagined he saw his mother or his father in every adult; every child reminded him of the nagging guilt that still tore at his soul, the part of him that insisted he should have died with them. Counselors, teachers, even Bogg had all told him he had no reason to blame himself, that he'd done exactly the right thing in trying to get help, but still that accusing corner of his mind told him he'd been a selfish coward, running away instead of staying to get them out. The counselors had called it "survivor's guilt" and had told him it was normal and would eventually pass, but knowing that didn't make it any easier to bear.

As he ran his errands, he heard some of the townspeople talking, rehashing the futile efforts of the bucket brigade that had battled the flames before the arrival of the firemen, and how attempts to rescue the passengers from the burning cars had been foiled by the terrible heat. It gave Jeffrey pause to realize that, even if people had stopped that night, they might not have had any more success. But perhaps what affected him the most was one man's remark that he would still be hearing those horrible screams on his deathbed.

To his own intense startlement, Jeffrey found comfort in those words. His parents had already been unconscious, beyond suffering, when the fire had started; for that much, at least, he could be grateful.

Though it was early July, it seemed the heat and humidity exceeded the worst that August in New York had to offer. His clothes dried quickly, then were drenched again in short order, this time in sweat. Soon there was no room for any thought at all beyond finishing each task. He kept himself going with frequent stops for water, but he could feel himself flagging as the hours passed, and there was still no sign of the reason for the red light.

~oOo~

The heat was positively murderous, Bogg thought as he drank a dipperful of water; he took a second one and poured it over his head. With no one close enough to see what he was doing, he checked the Omni and swore at the still-red light, then tossed a quick glance toward where he'd left Jeffrey, but the boy was nowhere in sight, and he heaved an exasperated sigh. Just once, that kid should stay put when he was told to. Just _once!_ Then he spotted him with that woman—what was her name? Oh, yeah; Ambler, that was it—and was ready to take him to task until he realized what sitting still and watching the too-familiar—if larger in scale—scenario must have been doing to him. He nodded to himself in approval at the kid's strategy as he returned to his own labors.

~oOo~

Jeffrey's whole being was pleading for rest when he returned from his latest "gofer run" to where he'd last seen Mary. She was not there, and he was sorely tempted to rest for just a few minutes, but he resisted the urge. If he stopped now, he'd fall asleep, and he wasn't sure that even dropping out of the Cosmos would be enough to wake him up this time. He didn't dare risk missing the pivotal moment that way, and so he kept moving, scanning the area until he spotted a nurse standing expectantly near the entryway to the last car. "Excuse me, but do you know where Mary Ambler is?" he asked.

"She's in there," the woman responded, nodding toward the car. "One of the children from that group still hasn't been accounted for—"

She cut off as Jeffrey pushed past her and scrambled up the steps, every instinct he owned screaming at him that This Was It. The car showed some fire damage at its forward end, and he knew the heat would still be trapped inside. Older people were more susceptible to extremes of temperature, he'd heard, and, to his eyes, Mary seemed to fit that description.

The atmosphere inside the car reduced the hottest day he'd ever known to insignificance; he felt as if he'd walked into a blast furnace. He gasped for breath, now pouring sweat in rivulets that tickled his back and stung his eyes.

He found her halfway down the length of the car, still on her feet only because she was leaning against the back of one of the hard wooden benches, braced on trembling arms. When she responded to her name with only a glassy, uncomprehending stare, he draped one of her arms across his shoulders and half-carried, half-dragged her toward the exit.

A second nurse had joined the first, and the pair took her from him; as soon as he was relieved of his burden, he turned and clambered back into the car before either of them could say a word to stop him. Dropping to the floor, he began crawling the length of the car, carefully peering underneath the benches.

In his time, firemen visited schools every year and taught fire safety and some basic rescue methods; one of the first thing even the very youngest got drummed into their heads was never to try to hide from a fire. He was pretty sure that kids in this time zone did not have the benefit of that kind of training; as if to prove it, he found the child, a small boy no more than six years old, huddled under the last bench at the rear of the car, up against the outer wall, in a dark corner where he would have been easily missed by adult searchers. It was even too tight a fit for Jeffrey. From the space between the facing benches, he reached in to try to pull the boy out and found that he'd jammed himself in there tightly enough that he might have been thoroughly stuck if he'd been conscious. As it was, Jeffrey had his hands full trying to get him out; by the time he'd managed it, he was feeling woozy. It took nearly everything he had left just to get to his feet, and he knew there was no way he'd be able to lift the child to carry him out. Gripping him under the arms, he dragged him up the aisle, counting it a miracle that the younger boy was still breathing and hoping he could make it to the exit before he passed out himself.

The last victim had finally been removed from the wreckage; Bogg looked around himself, then opened the Omni. Grinning tiredly at the green light, he scanned the area for Jeffrey. He spotted Mary Ambler sitting on the ground in the shadow of the last car, sipping water from a dipper, one of the nurses with her. Another nurse was at the car's gangway, taking an unconscious child from someone inside. She started to move away with him, but was knocked over with her burden when Jeffrey toppled out of the car and into her, to lie unmoving on the ground. His own fatigue vanishing in a surge of adrenaline, Bogg darted over.

"I have this one; help him," the nurse told him, nodding toward Jeffrey's prone form, and Bogg was only too happy to comply, dropping to one knee beside his young companion.

The boy let out a groan, rolled onto his back, and slowly sat up. "Did I hurt her?" he asked.

"She's fine," Bogg told him. "What about you?"

"I'll be okay as soon as I cool off. Can I have some water, please?"

Bogg picked him up and carried him over to where Mary was rapidly recovering, already fully alert,(9) driving off the nurse hovering over her and giving instructions to those wrapping up the operation. She got to her feet just as Bogg was settling Jeffrey on the ground next to the water bucket, and she smiled at them. "Thee has an exceptional boy there," she said to Bogg. "He did a man's work this day."

"To say the least," the remaining nurse agreed as she sponged down her small patient. "He saved two lives and, I daresay, risked his own doing it."

"Now don't exaggerate," Mary chided her gently. "Thee doesn't know that for sure."

"As you say," she shrugged, then added to Bogg, "You can be proud of him just the same."

Bogg wasn't sure he would go quite that far, but he _was _impressed; he supposed that was close enough. "I am," he replied, smiling at Jeffrey, who looked down bashfully. "Take it slow, or you'll make yourself sick," he cautioned the boy, handing him a dipper of water.

At the first taste of the cool water, Jeff had all he could do not to gulp it greedily; slowly sipping, he let out a long sigh of relief as Bogg wet a cloth and wiped his face. Within a very few minutes, he was feeling almost like himself again and was about ready to get up when one of the doctors came over. When a cursory glance assured him Jeffrey was in no need of his aid, he turned his attention immediately to the younger child. After a quick but thorough examination, he picked the boy up, and he and the two women hurried off with him. When they were out of earshot, Jeffrey asked, "What's the Omni saying?"

"Green," came the reply. "So one of us must've saved _somebody's_ life."

"I sure hope that other kid's gonna be okay," Jeff remarked.

"Well, maybe when we get done with our _other_ red light, we can Omni ahead and find out." Truth to tell, he wanted to know himself. That boy had had more than a passing resemblance to his best friend at the Voyager Academy. Maybe someday he'd get the chance to ask the guy if they were related. _That's if I ever dare to show my face at headquarters again,_ he added to himself wryly.

The lost Guidebook was likely to be of little consequence. Written in the language of the manufacturers, it could only be read by a Voyager; past incidents had shown that others, finding the contents illegible, tended to discard the book. Far more serious was the fact that he had made no effort to return Jeffrey to his own time. But he was going to have to go back to headquarters sooner or later, even if it was only for his periodic checkup. The longer he waited, the harder it was going to be on both of them; he suspected it might already be too late.

Jeffrey watched the indulgent grin fade from the Voyager's face, to be replaced by a troubled frown, and was suddenly a little uncertain. He _really_ didn't want Bogg to start snarling at him again. "You're not mad at me, are you?" he asked hesitantly.

Snapping out of his reverie, Bogg turned startled eyes to the boy. "Of course not," he quickly reassured him. "Why would I be?"

With a shrug, he replied, "You did tell me to stay put."

Bogg grimaced; that had to be one of the most thoughtless orders he'd ever given to anyone. "Yeah, but you had good reasons," he said.

His response elicited a mild start from Jeffrey; _that_ was a major change from the foul-tempered so-and-so who, only a few days ago, had accused him of killing his own father.

Bogg gave an embarrassed chuckle. "Yeah, I know I'm not exactly the most thoughtful man around when my temper gets the better of me—but I like to think I'm not _completely_ unreasonable."

Handing the empty dipper back to him, Jeffrey said, "Think you can get us back to Kentucky _without_ any more detours?"

"Hey, it's not my fault the darn thing got stuck on automatic," Bogg protested as he refilled the dipper.

"Just don't let it dump us someplace like the North Pole."

"You mean you don't want to meet Santa Claus?" Bogg teased. With a playful grin his only warning, he emptied the dipper over the boy's head.

Half-sputtering and half-laughing, Jeffrey snatched the wet cloth and threw it into Bogg's face, where it struck with a loud "splat."

The Voyager stood frozen for a split second, then peeled the dripping cloth off his face and mock-glared at him, his eyes dancing. The boy was already on his feet; as Bogg took a step toward him, he darted off.

"Oh, no you don't!" Bogg laughed, running after him. When he caught up to him, he picked him up easily and slung him over his shoulder, then started down the bank. When he waded into the creek, Jeff started to struggle and protest, still laughing.

The water was shallow, too shallow to drop the kid into it without hurting him. Laughing himself now, Bogg lowered him quickly into the cold creek, where he sat gasping for breath from the shock. When he could speak again, he shot a wicked glance up at Bogg. "Just remember: Payback's a bear," he threatened.

"Do tell," Bogg chuckled and quickly ducked the boy's head under.

He came up sputtering and started splashing water at Bogg; the Voyager splashed back, and soon they were both thoroughly drenched—and cooled down enough that they both felt human again. "Okay, come on, kid," Bogg said at last, reaching down and pulling the boy to his feet. "Casey Jones is waiting."

(1) His real name was John Luther Jones; his family called him Luther. Fellow railroad men started calling him "Cayce" for his hometown. He himself always spelled it like the town; it was his wife who spelled it "Casey," which eventually became the accepted spelling.

(2) For those who haven't heard _that _word before, it's a commonly used possessive form in the South.

(3) Considering the fact that the legend has been around since at least the 13th century, Bogg probably would know about Robin Hood from his 17th-century childhood---evidence in "An Arrow Pointing East" notwithstanding. I always rather thought they overplayed his ignorance there.

(4) Though only a small village today, Cayce was a thriving business town then; the presence of a pawn shop is a reasonable assumption.

(5) Those gold spheres have been in use since about the 14th century.

(6) Neither did any of my sources.

(7) Sources vary as to her age, placing it at 15, 17, or 18. In a glaring example of the kind of errors found in records from that time, her baptismal record reflects a date two years _earlier_ than her birth certificate, calling the accuracy of both documents into question. The medal she was awarded gives her age as 15, so that's the one I used.

(8)She was 56. In a picture taken around that time, she looks closer to 66; to an 11-year-old, she would have looked positively ancient.

(9) In the early stages of heat stress, one _does _recover that quickly. Trust me; I've been there.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The Night of the Assassins

_**Cayce, Kentucky; Summer 1878**_

To judge by the landscape surrounding the railroad station, there was nothing to the town whose outskirts it occupied. Tall, scraggly ragweed and jimson weed predominated, albeit sparsely, almost the only thing that would take root in the cinders that covered the soil. Several decades' worth of greasy soot had long since blackened the wood siding of the station-house and rendered its windows nearly opaque. The water tank on the opposite side of the tracks was in even worse condition, its sodden, moss-covered boards barely held together by the rusted iron hoops. It dripped constantly, the water mixing with the soot and cinders below to form oily puddles. At this time of day, it provided the only shade. All in all, it looked like a sere, barren place, offering little to anyone bothering to detrain there, belying the bustling, thriving business community beyond. But to the tall, lanky boy—for he was still a boy, despite the prodigious height which disguised his fifteen years—to the boy leaning laconically against one of the tank's heavy timber supports, it was a bit of heaven.

The whistle of the approaching No. 2 drowned out that of the opening of the time portal; his attention on the train, Luther did not see the ignominious landing of the Voyager and his companion.

Jeffrey brushed himself off. "There he is, over there by the water tank," he said.

"So how's he supposed to get past his mother's objections?"

"Well, she hoped he'd go into business, so he got a job as a telegrapher in the next town. But everybody there knew what he really wanted to do, so it wasn't long before his boss started him as a brakeman. After that he was a fireman for a while—the kind that keeps the boiler's fire going—before he got his first engine."

The noise of the train pulling into the station then precluded further conversation, and they watched in silence as the engineer and his fireman alighted from the cab and walked around to the far side of the engine. A few minutes later, they came back, now with Luther in tow, the youth with an oilcan in his hands. He periodically stopped and applied it to the drive rods. The loud, rhythmic bursts of steam as the engine vented pressure made it necessary for the trio to raise their voices as they talked, and Jeffrey and Bogg had no trouble overhearing them.

"How tall are you, son?" the engineer asked.

"'Round six foot, I reckon," came the reply from the red-faced Luther. Acutely aware of his unusual height, he hated it when anyone drew attention to it.

The engineer looked him over calculatingly. "Add two, three inches to that—you're going to be a whale of a big man when you stop growing and fill out."

Had the gangly youth chanced to glance toward the platform, he might have noticed Bogg giving him the same appraising once-over.

"Are you _sure_ he's only fifteen?" Bogg asked, leaning down to speak as quietly as possible over the racket.

"Positive," Jeffrey assured him. "He ends up even taller than you."

"Must be nigh on to twenty-one, ain't you?" the engineer next asked Luther, then paused to gaze disparagingly at the surrounding desolation. "Boy, get yourself _out_ of this godforsaken hole," he said, shaking his head as his hand found the grab-rail. "If you aim ever to start knockin' on a firebox door, it's time you got goin'." With that, he swung himself up into the cab. Moments later, with two shrill blasts from the whistle and a great belch of black smoke from the stack, No. 2 was on its way, with Luther gazing pensively after it.(1)

"You gonna do it?" Jeffrey made bold to ask.

The tall youth looked down at him, startled.

Jeffrey shrugged apologetically. "Sorry; couldn't help overhearing. Are you gonna be a fireman?"

Bogg took that as his cue. Having seen the youth's shyness and deciding that a boost in the morale department was just what the doctor ordered, he said, "Jeffrey, stop pestering the man and let him get about his business."

His choice of words did not go unnoticed by Luther, who seemed to take on confidence before their eyes. Maybe being so tall at his age wasn't such a bad thing after all. "Fireman, nothin'," he snorted, his voice cracking in the manner of all adolescent boys. "Oh, I expect I'll have to be one for a while, but I'll be drivin' them ol' mudhens(2) before too long." He paused. "Hafta talk my folks into it first, though."

"Don't I know it," Jeffrey sympathized. "My dad told me all about the robberies and wrecks that used to happen." He had to suppress a shudder at the memory, only minutes old, of the one in 1856.

"Well, sometimes wrecks do still happen," Luther admitted. "But there ain't been a robbery in years, not since they rounded up all them outlaws."

"My folks were kinda hoping I'd be a professor like my dad," Jeffrey offered, prodding for the opening he needed.

"My ma wants me to be a businessman," came the response, and Jeffrey seized it.

"Railroading's a business," he pointed out. "Look at James Hill. Edward Harriman. Cornelius Vanderbilt. JP Morgan. If they're not successful businessmen, I don't know who is."

"JP Morgan's a banker," Luther said, puzzled at the emphatic addition of that name to the list of railroad magnates.

"Yeah, but he bought the controlling shares in the New York Central a few years ago. He's practically doubled his worth since then."

A slow smile spread across Luther's face as he looked down at Jeffrey. "Now that's somethin' I can use! Thanks!" With a cheerful wave, he broke into a loping run toward home.

Jeffrey looked expectantly at Bogg; smiling, the Voyager opened the Omni and turned it so he could see the green light for himself. "So, when does he make that life-saving run of his?"

_**Memphis, Tennessee; April 29, 1900**_

The night was dismally dark; not a star was to be seen in the cloud-covered sky, and the smell of impending rain permeated the air and filled their noses as they picked themselves up, only to be nearly bowled over when a tall engineer, discussing the upcoming run with his fireman, walked into them. "Where'd you two fellers come from?" he demanded, then his eyes rested on Jeffrey. "Son, don't I know you?"

Swallowing hard, Jeffrey shook his head. Who would have thought the man would remember him after more than twenty years? "I don't think so," he managed.

"Well, you got yourself a powerful resemblance to the young pup that showed me how to clear my path," he said, and dug into a pocket. "Now, I'll tell you what. I don't even remember that little feller's name, but you look so much like him, I guess this'll be kind of like repayin' him. I'd like you to have these." With that, he handed Jeffrey a pair of silver cufflinks. "I made 'em myself."

Jeffrey's eyes went wide. "Gee, _thanks!"_ he grinned, his whole face alight.

"So long, Bud. I got me a train to run." With that, he swung up into the cab. It sent a thrill through Jeffrey to hear for himself the whippoorwill call that Casey alone could coax from the whistle, just before the train began to move. Jeffrey waved once more, then turned to let Bogg see the coveted cufflinks

"He really make these himself?" the Voyager wanted to know.

"Kind of. He'd stick coins on the grease plugs to hold 'em against the drive rods so they'd be rubbed smooth, then have a jeweler make cufflinks with them. He used to give 'em to the kids that'd hang out at this one station to watch the trains come through."

"Just like he used to do back at Cayce." Bogg smiled, watching the boy handle the cufflinks almost reverently as he slipped them into a pocket. "So tell me how he saved those people."

Suddenly sober, Jeffrey said, "There was a wreck. He stayed at the controls when he could've jumped to save himself. Not a single passenger got so much as a scratch, but Casey was killed."

Bogg rested a comforting hand on the boy's shoulder. "He really _was _a whale of a big man, then, wasn't he?"

Jeffrey looked up at him with a sad smile. "Y'know, it was one thing to read about him; in 1982, it was so long ago, he would've been dead anyway. Now that I've met him, it hurts. But at least I _did_ get to meet him."

With that simple statement, the boy rose a few more notches in the Voyager's estimation. He'd hoped Jeffrey wouldn't have to face this type of assignment for a while yet, but he'd handled it like a real trouper, turning all his efforts to ensuring that Casey would realize his lifelong dream, even knowing how it would turn out. Smiling to himself, he opened the Omni. "Ready to see how that kid you rescued is doing?"

His eyes troubled, Jeffrey said, "I'm not sure I want to know now. I'd hate to find out he didn't make it."

"I don't think you have to worry; something tells me he's going to be just fine."

_**Alaska, June 16, 1897**_

They landed in the midst of a pine forest; the thick carpet of needles that covered the ground might have made for one of their easier landings if it hadn't been for the liberal scattering of cones. But neither of them really minded; their mood was just too mellow for such routine inconveniences to shake. They'd arrived in Wissahickon late the day after they'd left it, right in front of Mary Ambler's home. The woman had happily informed them that little Nicky Cole had recovered completely, and she had insisted on feeding them and putting them up for the night. She'd sent them on their way the next morning after the best breakfast Jeffrey had eaten in quite some time, after which they'd briefly returned to Dayton to retrieve their own clothes before moving on to their next assignment.

There was a nip in the air, which quickly became a bite when the wind picked up, not unlike an early fall day in New York. That wind carried with it the sound of gunfire, punctuated by the rhythmic popping of Maxim guns(3) and the deeper boom of cannon. "That doesn't sound good," Bogg remarked as he checked the Omni, then grinned. "Hey, kid, we're in Alaska. Close enough to the North Pole for you?"

He ignored the dig. "1942?" he asked.

"No; 1897."

Jeffrey's brow furrowed in thought. The only shooting war he knew of in Alaska had taken place during the Second World War, when the Japanese had occupied three of the Aleutian Islands. But something important _had_ happened in Alaska around this time... "The gold rush!"

"I thought that was in California."

"In eighteen _forty-nine._ There was another one in Alaska after gold was discovered at the Yukon River in 1896. Maybe they're fighting over a claim."

"Did claim jumpers use cannons and machine guns?"

Deflating a bit, Jeffrey admitted, "I never heard of any."

"Where _is_ the Yukon River, anyway?"

"In the northern end of the state."

"Definitely not claim jumpers, then; we're in the southeastern part." He snapped the Omni shut and started off in the direction of the battle. "When we get there, stay close and keep your head down."

They hadn't gone far, however, when a youth not much older than Jeffrey came into view, wearing an American uniform and moving at a quick jog. At the sight of them, he froze in his tracks, eyeing them warily.

"Hey, it's okay," Jeffrey told him. "We're on your side."

The young soldier—probably a drummer boy—sagged in relief. "Then let me pass," he said. "I have a message to deliver."

"Can you spare a minute to help us?" Bogg asked.

"Okay, but make it quick; I'm in a hurry."

"What's the fighting all about?"

"Where've you two been?" the youth demanded incredulously.

"You know how it is on those mountain trails," Jeffrey replied with a shrug. "You can go for months without seeing anybody."

"The Russians attacked one of our forts, crossed the border into the Oregon Territory to do it."

"The _Russians?_ I thought Alaska was ours," Jeffrey said.

The drummer boy grinned tightly. "Not yet, but it will be after we drive those borscht-eaters out."

"But what happened to Seward?"

"Who?"

"William Seward. President Lincoln's Secretary of State."

"You've been out of touch for a _real_ long time, haven't you? He was killed in his own home, the same night Lincoln and Johnson were shot."

Jeffrey turned wide eyes to Bogg and nodded.

"Thanks, son," Bogg told the messenger. "Best be on your way now."

"Yessir." With a tip of his hat, he was gone.

"Okay, kid, where to?"

"April 14, 1865, Washington, DC," he replied. "A group of Confederate sympathizers headed by John Wilkes Booth—"

"Booth," Bogg cut him off, looking up from setting the Omni. "Isn't he the one that shot the President?" He couldn't help looking smug when Jeffrey's surprised expression told him that he'd gotten one right for a change. "I do remember a _few_ things, you know," he said.

The boy rolled his eyes and replied, "Killing Lincoln was only part of it. At the same time, George Atzerodt was supposed to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Lewis Powell was sent after Seward. Atzerodt chickened out altogether. Powell actually stabbed Seward in the face, but Seward was wearing a jaw splint from an accident that happened some time before that."

"And the splint deflected the knife," Bogg concluded, and Jeffrey nodded. "So what's Seward got to do with what's happening here?"

"He's the one who negotiated the Alaska Purchase in 1867."

Once more, something clicked in Bogg's mind. "Seward's Folly?" he asked.

"Right," Jeffrey grinned as he rested a hand on Bogg's arm.

_**Washington, DC; April 14, 1865**_

It was midafternoon when they landed, this time in a market district. It was busier than Bogg had ever seen a market except in the last few days before Christmas, and the Omni told him that certainly wasn't the case here. It was Jeffrey—as usual, lately—who provided the explanation. "It's Good Friday," he told the Voyager. "People are getting ready for Easter."

"Buying last-minute Easter baskets?"

"More like last-minute food," the boy replied, more quietly now, and Bogg cast a glance at him to see a sadness in his eyes. It made him remember the Easters of his own boyhood, when whole extended families had gathered for the feast.

Time to change the subject. "Well, we need to be looking for last-minute _clothes,"_ he said, and Jeffrey gave him a grateful look.

"Wait here."

It was a long wait, but finally he was back, and they retreated to the end of the alley, hiding behind some stacked crates as they quickly changed. As they did, Jeffrey provided more detail on the information he had given Bogg before they had left Alaska.

Bogg frowned in thought as he listened. There were _two _events to be set right here, both of them occurring at the same time in different locations, though one of them would be simple enough to handle. All it would take was a message left at the Kirkwood Hotel, where both George Atzerodt and Andrew Johnson were staying, telling Atzerodt to abort his mission. He could leave it at the front desk now, with instructions to deliver it at 10:15 tonight, giving himself plenty of time to get to Seward's house, complete with cover story.

But that left Jeffrey at loose ends. From everything the kid was telling him, the situation was going to get very ugly, to the point that he could just about count on being wounded in the fray. It was no place for the boy—The memory of Jeffrey gunning down the Red Baron presented itself, and he shoved it away. He'd needed the extra hands that time, but that was not the case here; there was no reason to expose him to almost certain injury. He would have to leave him somewhere to wait, but if there was one thing he'd learned about the kid in the past two or three days, it was that it would take the threat of dire consequences to make him obey that order, a threat Bogg wasn't sure he had the heart to carry out. His only viable option was to give him something to do, but it had to be a real task, essential to the assignment; the kid would see right through anything less.

"My collar's lopsided, isn't it?" Jeffrey's voice interrupted his musings.

Inspecting the boy's garb, he chuckled at the way the collar was twisted. He deftly undid the back, sraightened it, and replaced the stud.(6) "You're supposed to attach the back of the collar _before_ you put the shirt on." He checked the boy's appearance and nodded. "That's better." He bundled up their own clothes and found a secure hiding place for them before leading Jeffrey back out into the street. "Okay; we're going to have to split up. I don't like it, but we don't have a lot of choice."

Jeffrey hid an excited grin.

"I'll take care of Powell; your job is to stick to Atzerodt and make sure he abandons his mission. In fact, I've got an idea. Come on, kid."

"Where are we going?"

"The Kirkwood Hotel. You're going to get a job."

The hotel manager looked dubious when Bogg told him Jeff had never worked as a bellboy before. "I don't know about this, Mr. Bogg. This is a premiere hotel; our guests expect the best of everything. Perhaps it would be better for your nephew to work at one of the lesser hotels and let him acquire experience that way."

Bogg let himself sound exasperated. "We've already tried every other hotel in the city and gotten the same answer," he complained.

The manager scrutinized the boy standing beside his uncle. Like most youngsters his age, he was looking around the luxuriously appointed lobby, but not with the boredom one usually saw in children who were forced to wait quietly while their elders conversed. No; those sharp dark eyes were clearly observing every detail, tracking each hotel employee and carefully noting what each one did and how he did it. One could almost see him file away anything he did not understand, to ask about it at the next opportunity, and the man found himself nodding in approval. The boy would be a fast learner and a diligent worker—and how much experience did one need to carry baggage, anyway? "Very well," he said at last, slapping at the bell on the desk. "I'll give him a chance. Now, we usually pay our boys in room and board…" He was interrupted by the arrival of a bellboy a little older than Jeffrey. "Tyler, this is Jeffrey Jones. Get him set up and show him the ropes."

"Yes, sir. Come on, Jeff."

~oOo~

Jeffrey was carefully measured and fitted for a uniform, and he was surprised to see that the outfit of a bellboy had changed little over the years. The ones he'd seen in his own time had sported a lot less trim and piping, and the single row of small brass buttons running down the front of the tunic had gone the way of the dodo bird long before 1982, but the cut and fit were the same. While hats had no longer been _de rigueur _by then, he'd always felt sorry for the few who'd still been required to wear those dorky-looking pillbox-type hats. Now he saw that the hat was as traditional as the rest of the uniform as he donned his own. Well, he consoled himself, at least it was only for a few hours.

Next he was shown to the servants' quarters, where he was assigned a tiny room. Only twice as wide as the narrow bed, its length accommodated that bed with about a foot to spare; the bed itself was narrower than the twin bed Jeffrey had had back in New York. Next to it was a small nightstand with a single drawer, below which was a commode.(7) An oil lamp was provided on the nightstand to light the room, and there were four pegs on the wall opposite the bed for his clothes. Being a basement room, its only ventilation was a small window near the top of the wall. He was hanging his street clothes when Bogg found his way to the room.

He looked the boy up and down and grinned. "Not bad, kid."

"The hat needs help," Jeffrey groused.

"You'll live," Bogg reassured him with a chuckle. "I can think of some worse things you could be stuck wearing—and probably will at some point."

The first thought that popped into the boy's head was of the stuffed pantaloons of the Conquistadors, and he fervently hoped he'd be spared that indignity.

Bogg tossed a quick glance at Tyler. The young bellhop, apparently experienced enough to have learned the subtle nuances of body language, correctly identified a desire for privacy and backed out of the room, shutting the door behind himself. Once he was gone, the Voyager handed Jeffrey a folded sheet of paper. "At ten-fifteen tonight, give this to Atzerodt."

Curiously, Jeffrey opened it. Inside was the single word _abort_ in Bogg's handwriting, a sort of modified Elizabethan script that could pass for a particularly ornate Spencerian hand.

"When he reads that," Bogg was saying, "he should walk out like you said he's supposed to; you follow him until you're sure everything's back on track. Then come back and wait for me here. I mean it," he added firmly when Jeffrey opened his mouth to protest. "I catch you anywhere near Seward's house, and you won't like what'll happen, you understand me?"

Jeffrey nodded unhappily as he tucked the message inside his tunic. "Just be careful, Bogg," he said.

~oOo~

This was the part of any assignment he'd never get used to, Bogg thought as he left the hotel: wandering through a strange city, trying to find a particular individual when he had no idea where to look. Jeffrey had told him that Seward lived close to the White House; he was already on Pennsylvania Avenue, so he supposed that the White House was the best place to start.

He was surprised to see that it wasn't fenced; the pictures he remembered seeing had always shown the house and grounds surrounded by a wrought-iron fence, and the place fairly bristling with guards. But, according to Jeffrey, there were no regular security arrangements at this time, though Washington police or US marshals were sporadically used as bodyguards for various government officials, as well as the President.

The difficulties involved in getting his hands on a uniform made claiming to be a cop infeasible—Did the word "cop" even exist yet, he wondered. Marshals did not wear uniforms, but they did wear badges, again presenting acquisition problems. Despite what movies depicted, however, deputies, particularly those sworn in only temporarily, did not always wear them. Bogg nodded minutely to himself as his plan solidified, and he picked up his pace, even though he still didn't know where he was going.

His sudden acceleration threw off the judgment of a man passing in front of him, with the resultant inevitable collision. Bogg reached out quickly and steadied the man, preventing him from falling. "I'm so sorry," he apologized. "I guess I oughtta watch where I'm going, huh? You okay, Mr.…?"

"Seward," the man introduced himself. "Frederick Seward. I'm all right; don't worry about it."

_Paydirt! _It was Seward's son, the Assistant Secretary of State. "Phineas Bogg. I've been deputized to guard your father," he said.

Frederick looked puzzled. "But there's already a soldier stationed at the house," he said.

"There's word that there may be an attempt on the Secretary's life tonight, and it was decided a little extra security was in order."

"By all means," Frederick approved. "I'm heading home now; why don't you come with me?"

It was that easy. Not for the first time in his career, Bogg marvelled at the way things had of falling into place with hardly any effort on his part.

~oOo~

"Sergeant George Robinson, this is Phineas Bogg," Frederick introduced his companion when he got home. "He's been sent by the marshal's office; apparently there's some threat to my father."

"Glad to have the help, Mr. Bogg," Robinson said, extending a hand, and Bogg shook it. "Will you be positioned anywhere in particular, or just generally around the house, like me?"

"Actually, I'll be in the Secretary's room, as the last line of defense," Bogg replied.

"I'll take you to him, then. His daughter is also there most of the time, taking care of him."

"William," Frederick addressed the butler, "please tell the cook there'll be one more for dinner."

"Very good, sir," came the reply, and the butler headed toward the kitchens, whereupon Frederick excused himself and retired to his room, as Robinson led Bogg upstairs.

The woman who admitted them to Seward's room might not have been one of the world's great beauties, but neither was she hard on the eyes. Robinson greeted her with a half-bow. "Miss Frances Seward, may I present Mr. Phineas Bogg of the Secret Service," he began the formal introduction. "Mr. Bogg, Miss Frances Seward."

She smiled and extended her hand, the fingers held in proper fashion for a new acquaintance; with the same half-bow, Bogg took it and raised it to his lips. "An honor, Miss Seward."

"Likewise, Mr. Bogg." To Robinson she said, "Thank you, Sergeant; I'll introduce him to Father."

With another bow, Robinson took his leave, and Frances ushered Bogg into the room. Seward himself was sitting up in a great four-poster bed, his broken jaw immobilized by a bulky, complicated-looking affair. "Father, this is Mr. Phineas Bogg from the marshal's office."

"So they decided Sergeant Robinson wasn't enough security, eh?" Seward said, his splinted jaw making him sound as if his mouth were stuffed with cotton.

"Sir, there's evidence that some Confederate sympathizers may attempt an eleventh-hour coup tonight, so I've been assigned as backup."

"I see. Well, have a seat; you may as well make yourself comfortable."

"Thank you, sir." Bogg settled in one of the two chairs by the fireplace. Frances was in the other, embroidering.

"So, tell us about yourself, Mr. Bogg," she said. "Have you any family?"

"Just my nephew," he replied. "His parents were killed in a fire last year."

"Oh, how dreadful! I'm so sorry. How old is he?"

"Almost twelve."

"Poor thing. How's he holding up?"

"He's not doing too bad. I think the change of location since I took him out of New York has helped a lot."

They continued to make small talk for a while, Frances' coy looks making it clear that she wished they weren't in the same room with her father. For his part, Bogg actually wished she'd stop the subtle flirting; it was only making his own frustration worse. He was actually relieved when the butler came in with their dinner.

"William, take Fanny's to the dining room," Seward told him. "She can eat downstairs with her brothers tonight; I think Mr. Bogg can take over for a while."

Frances pouted briefly before leaving, and Seward chuckled fondly. "My daughter is a hopeless flirt. Don't let her fool you, Mr. Bogg; her dance card is always filled within the first half-hour at the ballroom.(8) That will be all for now, William," he added to the butler; when the man had left, Seward grimaced at his tray. "I am so tired of drinking my dinner," he moaned. "I tell you, I would _kill_ for something I could sink my teeth into!"

"I know how you feel," Bogg said sympathetically. "How long has it been?"

"A little over a week," Seward groused and sipped at a mug of broth.

Bogg glanced at his own plate and grinned conspiratorially. "Well, I don't know about anything you'd really have to chew, but I can spare some of these mashed turnips."

"God bless you, man!" Seward laughed as Bogg transferred a small bit of the vegetable to his bread plate and handed it to him. Though he winced painfully with every mouthful, he doggedly worked his way through all of it, then had Bogg remove the dish to his own tray before Frances or William came back. When the butler returned to remove the empty dishes, the two men looked at each other and started laughing like a pair of schoolboys who had gotten away with some prank; William's professional deadpan expression slipped just the smallest bit as he guessed what had gone on.

_**Kirkwood Hotel, 10:15 p.m.**_

Making sure no one saw what he was doing, Jeffrey withdrew the folded message from his tunic and set it on a small silver tray, which he then carried into the hotel's bar. "George Atzerodt!" he called, his high voice carrying clearly over the murmur of conversation. "Message for George Atzerodt!"

It was a measure of the man's nervousness that he nearly fell off his stool in alarm when he heard his name. "Over here," he called, and Jeffrey handed him the paper. Heaving a great sigh of relief as he read it, Atzerodt then wadded it into a crumpled ball and left it on the counter as he got to his feet and headed for the door. Jeffrey paused long enough to leave the tray and that awful hat on a table before following him outside.

_**Seward house, 10:10 p.m.**_

The sound of voices in the hall drifted in to them; Frances opened the door in time to hear a stranger's voice say, "Dr. Verdi sent me with some new medicine for the Secretary; I'm to deliver it to him personally and show him how to take it."

"I'm sorry, sir, but my father is asleep," Frederick's voice replied.

"Fred, father's awake now," Frances told him. Bogg, looking over her shoulder, yanked her back as Powell drew a gun. "Take cover!"he snapped as he darted into the hall.

Powell's gun jammed; panicked, he reversed it and slammed it into Frederick's head before Bogg could reach them. Tossing the now-useless pistol aside, the assailant drew a knife, then dove at the Voyager blocking the doorway. His lunge carried them both into the room, and they toppled to the floor, wrestling for control of the weapon. Momentarily pinned by the larger man, Powell flung his head forward into Bogg's face, stunning him long enough to push him off and get to his feet. Bogg was on him again almost at once, but not quickly enough to keep him from reaching Seward. He made a desperate grab for Powell's arm as the knife descended. The blade snagged in his sleeve, grazing his arm; though it slowed the attack, it wasn't enough to prevent the blade from deeply scoring the Secretary's face. Seward rolled off the far side of his bed onto the floor as protector and assailant struggled. Robinson and Seward's second son Augustus rushed into the room as Powell broke free and ran out past them; they went after him, while Bogg remained to help Frances with her father.

She was kneeling next to him on the floor, mindless of the blood saturating her own sleeve. When had that happened, Bogg wondered. He'd been too busy to keep an eye on her as well. "Miss Seward, you're hurt."

She looked up at him, tears running down her face. "What difference does it make?" she sobbed. "My father's dead. Oh, my God, Father's dead!" she cried, and Bogg's heart nearly stopped. Had he failed in his assignment?

No. Not possible. _If a field worker is in imminent danger of failing a mission…another Voyager will always be dispatched to assist,(9)_ the Code assured him, and no other Voyager had appeared, so unless Mission Control was falling down on the job—which was just about impossible…

To Frances' surprise and Bogg's great relief, the wounded Secretary let out a groan. "I am not dead," he growled and started issuing orders.

One police patrolman arrived with the doctor and assisted him and the household staff in picking up the pieces before he even started to question anyone. Frances' wound was not serious; after the doctor had bandaged her arm and given her a mild sedative, one of the maids took her to her room. Frederick had a mild concussion and was also removed to his room. Augustine had been stabbed in the side as Powell had rushed past him in his escape; that wound needed six stitches, but had never been life-threatening. Seward himself would bear a scar, but would otherwise be as good as new.

Robinson's left arm took five stitches and was now supported in a sling as he watched the doctor finish bandaging Bogg's right arm. That wound was minor, as his coat sleeve had taken the brunt of what had essentially been a glancing blow, and he escaped without sutures. "I'm glad you were here," the sergeant said. "You probably saved Mr. Seward's life tonight."

"A pity the same can't be said of the guard at Ford's Theater," the policeman commented. "I didn't have a chance to tell you before, but the President was shot tonight, at about the same time as the Secretary was attacked."

Robinson looked sharply at Bogg. "Your superiors had the right of it," he breathed shakily. "It _was_ a coup. I just hope Johnson's guard is as effective as you were."

That was an exit cue if he'd ever heard one; Bogg turned and made for the door.

"Mr. Bogg, wait," the policeman tried to stop him. "I'll need—"

"Talk to me later; I have to check on my nephew," Bogg said, yanking his good arm out of the man's grip. "He's a bellboy at the Kirkwood, where Johnson's staying."

A family man himself, the officer paled as the possible significance of that struck him. "Good heavens, man! Go!" he agreed hastily. Belatedly, he called after him, "Ah...where can I find you?" But he'd waited a split second too long; Bogg was already gone.

_**Washington streets, 10:20 p.m.**_

Trailing the reluctant conspirator proved to be no easy task. The man walked so fast, Jeffrey was forced to a half-jog to keep him in sight; once again he longed for his Nikes as his current shoes made moving silently difficult. Atzerodt continually looked over his shoulder, forcing the boy to keep to the shadows. At least those shadows were plentiful and deep in the dim gaslight. Finally, however, he saw what he was waiting for: Atzerodt cast his knife into a hedge as he passed. Jeffrey had to duck into a doorway when the man belatedly looked around to make sure no one had seen him discarding the incriminating weapon. When Atzerodt continued on his way, Jeffrey turned back toward the Kirkwood, debating whether or not to follow his instructions.

Bogg was the closest thing to a guardian he had left, and the prospect of facing life without him was truly frightening. The lot of a street urchin in this time zone was a poor one at best, and what passed as orphanages didn't even bear thinking about. It would be worth facing that quick temper if his presence somehow ensured the Voyager's survival.

Of course, if the worst did happen, he wasn't completely unprovided; he already had a job that would provide him with food and shelter. He couldn't see himself working in a hotel for the rest of his life, but other opportunities were bound to present themselves as time went on. It seemed a bleak sort of future at best, though; he would have been rescued from guardians who resented his presence, only to be left with no one at all. It brought back the same gut-wrenching fear he'd felt when Bogg had tried to abandon him a few days ago, and it now occurred to him that if the Voyager were still inclined to do so, this was his chance.

That thought stopped Jeffrey dead in his tracks with a wave of pain so intense, it stole his breath away. Bogg was nothing like his father, not even close, and yet he had slipped into the boy's heart as if he'd always been there, as if he belonged there. That couldn't be right; how could he turn his back on his parents that way? It somehow felt disloyal, but if he couldn't have his parents, was it so wrong to want a guardian he liked? Beset by confusion and a new kind of guilt, he resumed his walk back toward the hotel, until another thought stopped him.

The Omni. If something did happen to Bogg, they would find the Omni, and that must not be allowed to happen. It was up to him to make sure it didn't.

He was tired, his arm ached abominably, and, to be frank, he really was worried about Jeff. The Omni was green now, so the message had done its job, but that was no guarantee the kid was okay; experience had taught him that too well—his own current condition being a case in point. He hadn't really liked the thought of making him walk through the empty, dimly lit streets alone, but the alternative had been far worse. As he made his way through the now-deserted market to the alley where he'd hidden their clothes, he reminded himself that Jeffrey was from New York City, a place that had more than its fair share of shady characters, just like every large city in any time zone he could think of. Surely the kid knew how to look after himself.

He was back on Pennsylvania Avenue, walking past the White House, when he spotted Jeffrey coming toward him, still about a block away. Though he was visible only as a silhouette in the darkness, Bogg would know that gait anywhere. The kid apparently recognized him in the same instant, for he broke into an eager run, and Bogg felt a smile slowly spread across his face, wondering at the way his weariness was dispelled by the boy's obvious welcome. He had to struggle to replace the smile with sternness as he remembered his earlier warning.

Jeffrey slowed his pace, pivoted on one foot, and fell in beside him. Before he could say a word, however, Bogg demanded flatly, "What did I tell you?"

"I had to come," the kid responded in a matter-of-fact tone. "I had to make sure nobody got his hands on the Omni if…if you didn't make it."

Bogg cast a startled glance toward the boy. Clearly the kid was taking this whole business as seriously as any seasoned Voyager, and Phineas was impressed despite himself. But then, what was the threat of mere punishment to a kid who had already shown himself willing to risk his life to ensure the survival of another? That thought reminded him of something he hadn't thought of since long before VHQ had snatched him from the deadly grip of a stormy sea. As vividly as if it had happened yesterday, he remembered how lost he had felt when his own father had vanished from the portside village his family had called home. He'd been maybe a year or two younger than Jeffrey at the time, and he would gladly have welcomed even the elder Bogg's disapproval, with the accompanying painful and humiliating punishment, just for the chance to see him again. Suddenly understanding what drove his young companion, he relinquished his stern façade in favor of grudging approval. "Good thinking—but not necessary," he added, immediately throwing a damper on the bright smile that greeted his initial pronouncement. "If a Voyager is killed, the Omni is automatically recalled.(10)" He stopped and turned to face Jeffrey. "I'll let it go this time, because you didn't know. Next time, though—"

"I know; I won't like what'll happen," Jeffrey finished.

"Smart kids give me a pain," Bogg growled, but he was smiling again. "Omni's green," he reported, changing the subject.

"You okay?" Jeffrey asked.

"I've been better," Bogg replied with a shrug as he started walking again.

"What happened?"

"It got crazy, just like you said it would; I don't think anybody got out of there unhurt." He was glad it was too dark for Jeffrey to be able to see just how much blood was on his clothes. "How about you?"

"Nothing to tell. It was a milk run."

"At least one of us had it easy. What do you say we take advantage of that cubicle of yours and grab some sleep while we can?"

"We can't both fit in that bed; it's barely big enough for one," Jeffrey pointed out.

Bogg shrugged again. "It won't be the first time I've slept on a bare floor. Just make sure you don't step on me in the morning," he added with a grin.

* * * * * *

(1) Scene adapted from _Casey Jones—Epic of the American Railroad _by Fred J. Lee, Southern Publishers, Inc., Kingsport, TN, 1939.

(2) Old railroad slang for a locomotive

(3) Old railroad slang for a locomotive.

(4) The first true automatic weapon, invented in 1884, the Maxim was the next-gen version of the more well-known Gatling gun.

(5) Contrary to what is sometimes shown in old movies, drummer boys in the US Army were _never_ on the front lines; rather, they worked as servants to officers, or as messengers.

(6) The detachable collars of the time were fastened to the shirt in the back and front with two studs, which were similar to cufflinks. The style survives today in some tuxedoes.

(7) A commode in this time was a small cabinet just big enough to hold a chamber pot, hence the modern euphemism used in those parts of the US where the word "toilet" is considered impolite.

(8) Since it was considered unseemly for an unmarried lady to dance with the same gentleman more than once or twice in an evening unless they were engaged, it was customary for singles of _both _sexes to carry "dance cards." Each dance was numbered; one wrote a partner's name

next to a number as "appointments" were made throughout the evening. Since one was expected to dance with multiple partners in an evening, the cards provided a means of keeping track of them. How quickly one's card was filled was a measure of popularity.

(9) Voyagers' Guidebook, section V-2, part IV, article xi.

(10) This isn't in the Guidebook, but inferred from other information that is there.


End file.
